Viva Vox

Book excerpt: In failing to take the sacramentality of the word of God seriously, the preaching of the church has suffered negative consequences. As a result, preaching has often become, at best, a form of instruction or, at worst, an incantation of sorts rather than an integral part of deepening our relationship with Christ by functioning sacramentally to bring about divine participation with Jesus’ corporeal humanity in his living word. In order to recover this sacramental reality, this volume argues that one should consider the annunciation to Mary where, with the sermon of Gabriel, the corporeal Christ took up residence in the flesh of his hearer, and delivered to her precisely what was contained within his own flesh: the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). When understood as a biblical paradigm for the church, it becomes clear that what happened to Mary can, indeed, happen to Christians of the present day. Proclamation, thus, delivers the Christ to us.